Welcome to A Country Girl’s Life!  Here is thorough explanation of how our site works and answers to the most common questions we receive via email and contact forms.

Unfortunately, we are a very small, one woman operation and do not have tech support at this time for any of our free printables.  If you read this entire article you’ll probably find the answer to many technical and non-technical questions you may have.

First….here’s some information about how all the FREE printables work…

MY FREE PRINTABLES LIBRARY- The Country Club

The majority of our printables are free for personal use and kept in my FREE printables library which we call The Country Club.  This is a big perk for our email subscribers.  We are adding valuable printables to our library several times a month.

You can access the printables library via password.  To receive the password you can use our email forms at the bottom and right hand side of our web page acountrygirlslife.com.  Simply enter your name and email and within a few minutes you should see a “subscription confirmation” email from us.  You MUST confirm your email. 

Once you confirm your email you will be taken to a page that has the password on it.  You should also see a series of welcome emails that also include the password. The password is also at the bottom of every email we send out to you on a weekly basis so you can look for it there too.

NOTE! We are very slowly transitioning away from a printables library to the Grow App where you’ll be able to download directly from the page you are viewing and not go into a separate library. This transition will take a lot of time because we have 100s of posts to transition. At the moment you will possibly see a mix of posts with the old system and new system in place.

 

FLASH FREEBIES (Limited Time)

A few times a month we give away what we call flash freebies.  Flash freebies are items in my shop that I give away for FREE for a limited time.  You’ll want to grab these items ASAP because they go into the shop for sale after the flash freebie period is over.  We give out a coupon code in our posts and you use the code in the checkout process of my shop.

MY SHOP- The Paper Hen

I make lots of printables and physical products that go into my shop The Paper Hen.  We’re always adding new and exciting things so check out my shop HERE.  It’s a great way to support a small, one woman owned business.  Our Shop is how we are able to keep the lights on and how we keep a large portion of our work as FREE to the public.  We appreciate your support!

If you are a paying customer of my shop The Paper Hen and are experiencing technical difficulties or cannot download we can answer your  questions via email or contact form M-F from 8am-5pm.

{Frequently Asked Questions}:

Can I sell your printables, modify and sell them or give them away for free?

NO.  All printables from acountrygirlslife.com or thepaperhen.com are FOR PERSONAL USE PROJECTS ONLY.  Permission is not granted for commercial use/distribution without the consent of the owner and creator, The Paper Hen, acountrygirlslife.com and creator retain all rights, license, copyright, title, and ownership of all printable products.

You may NOT distribute our printables to others, including re-selling, re-licensing, re-distributing, giving away for free, or as part of a free giveaway.  Doing so will force legal action on behalf of the creator.  Contact the owner using the contact link at the bottom of this page for more information about commercial use, reproduction or custom design work.

I can’t find the download button.  Where is it?

When we release a new printable we like to share pictures and information about how to download.  We are partially an ad supported website.  It’s a lot of information/data on every page especially if you are viewing on a mobile device.  Here is what our download buttons look like.

The download bottom is located near the bottom of each post.  Keep in mind that our flash freebies require a coupon code because they are in our shop.  You have to read the post to get the coupon code to enter at checkout in our shop.

NOTE! We are very slowly transitioning away from a printables library to the Grow App where you’ll be able to download directly from the page you are viewing and not go into a separate library. This transition will take a lot of time because we have 100s of posts to transition. At the moment you will possibly see a mix of posts with the old system and new Grow App system in place.

I lost the password to the printables library.  How can I get the password?

If you are an email subscriber you can look at any of our old emails to find the password.  I always send out the password at the end of every email, every Friday.  If you don’t have any of our old emails simply wait until the following Friday where you will again receive an email with the password in it.

I’m not receiving any emails from you.  What’s the problem?

First, check your spam & promo folders.  If our emails are going there you’ll need to add this email to your contacts: lisa@acountrygirlslife.com.  Even if you don’t see our emails in your spam folders you’ll need to add us to your contacts in order to get our emails in the future.

Note: If you are new to our list you’ll be a part of a welcome sequence of emails which ALL contain the password to the printables library.  The welcome sequence starts 24 hours after you sign up. The library password is also located on the subscription confirmation page but you MUST CONFIRM to get the password.

 

How do I download your FREE Printables?

As mentioned earlier, our free printables are either in our password protected library or in our shop and accessed with a coupon code for a limited time.

Our Printables usually come in two different file types.  PDFs and transparent PNG files.  The transparent PNG files are so you can load them into your Cricut design space software and convert them into SVG cutting machine files for cutting.  Our planner covers are JPG so that they print true to size.  You need to have a way to view these files in order to download and print.

The biggest problem I see our readers having is that they have no way to view PDFs. Most modern internet browsers are capable of viewing PDFs but if you are on an older computer and can’t get them to open it may be that you don’t have a PDF viewer.  You can download a free PDF viewer at the Adobe website.

It says “download exceeded” when downloading a flash freebie from your shop?

We have a strict limit of two downloads per created link (in our shop).  This limit exists because there were people posting our links to Facebook, forwarding them around via email and posting them all over the internet.  When our files are forwarded/passed around we lose  control over them.  We’ve found our files being sold on Etsy and other shops because the person downloading thought this was okay and didn’t read our terms and conditions which comes with every download.

Please make sure that you are in an area where you can safely download your files.  Currently, we do not have the manpower to send out individual files if the limit is exceeded.

If you are a paying customer of thepaperhen.com and have exceeded your download you can contact us at lisa@acountrygirlslife.com for assistance.

I can’t find the file I just downloaded.  Where is it?

Go to “my computer” in your file explorer.  Look for the “downloads” file.  Almost all downloads you ever make are saved to this folder.  Another option is to use the search bar and use the file name of your printable to find your file on your computer.

How do I print?

I use my trusty, inexpensive Canon Pixma Ink Jet Printer to print at home.  If you don’t have a printer at home you can take your files to a place like Office Depot, Office Max, Fedex,  Kinkos or the UPS Store to have them printed out.  If you have an ink jet printer at work, you could print them out there too.  You may need to bring your own sticker paper with you (they may not have sticker paper on hand).

NOTE:  Ink Jet sticker paper is made of plastic and should ONLY be used with ink jet printers.  Laser jet printers use heat and may melt your ink jet sticker paper in the printer. You must by laser jet specific sticker paper.

Please take a moment to note that some mobile devices such as iphones, android phones and ipads may take issue with downloads from a link.  You may have to go to a desktop computer to download and print your printables successfully.

How do I resize your printables for my planner?

You can resize any US Letter sized sheet from our website or shop to fit most popular planner sizes using this handy resizing guide which is also a Pinterest pin you can save for later reference. If you’re confused about what US Letter size is please refer to this standard paper sizes chart.

My printout is all black.  Why is this happening?

I’ve heard of this issue when readers print PDFs from a Mac computer, iPad or iPhone….specifically that the print outs turn out all black.  If you must print from a mac OS or an iPhone you may need to “print as an image” to avoid this.

What do I print stickers on?

I like to print out all my stickers on this glossy sticker paper because it prints true to color. You can also print them on this clear sticker paper (which has gloss and prints true to color).  Clear stickers are easy to place anywhere on your planner without interfering with the functional layout of a planner (lines etc). If you need to create waterproof stickers the best option is waterproof vinyl. If you’re on a budget the best option is this matte sticker paper.

I don’t recommend using any kind of matte sticker papers because they absorb more ink and make even the most colorful stickers look faded and pixelated.

How do I cut out printable stickers?

The first option (and probably the easiest) is to use a Cricut Cutting Machine to cut out the stickers.  We provide you with a transparent PNG file which can be used with Cricut design space.  If you want to use your Cricut cutting machine you’ll need to “import” our transparent PNG file into Cricut design space and turn it into a “print then cut” file. We have detailed instructions for How to Make Stickers with a Cricut that you may want to check out.

You can also cut stickers out the old fashioned way using something like a circle punch, a fingertip craft knife, a flexible square punch board, straight line cutter, or scissors.

I’m still having problems downloading.  What else can I try?

The biggest problem I see is with readers trying to download and print from a mobile device of any kind.  If you’ve exhausted everything on this FAQ page then my suggestion is go to our website on a desktop computer to complete your viewing and downloads.  Make sure that you have the ability to view PDFs & JPGs.

One option is to go our Totally Free Printables Facebook Group and ask the community a very specific/detailed question and include a screenshot of the problem you are having.  One of our members may be able to help.

As mentioned earlier, we are a very small operation and we don’t have the ability to provide tech support or answer emails about tech support for our free printables.

If you are a paying customer for our printables shop thepaperhen.com you can contact us directly at lisa@acountrygirlslife.com for assistance.